


Fresh Heart

by rufeepeach



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, deep relationship discussions, emotional smut, post-episode, season 5, the bear and the bow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-05-01 00:27:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5185283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rufeepeach/pseuds/rufeepeach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Rumpelstiltskin pulls the sword from the stone, he and Belle return to the shop and have a much needed conversation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fresh Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I’m sure this has already been done and will be done again, but I had a lot of feelings and needed to see these idiots talk (and do other things) to each other so here you go.

They leave the basement, and leave Emma to her darkness and her broken sword. When they break free into the cool night air Belle can breathe for the first time in hours.

“Thanks for that, yeah?” Merida turns to them, and Belle can see her discomfort in her fidgeting hands even while she stubbornly looks them in the eye. “You didn’t have to do that for me.”

Belle turns to Rumpelstiltskin, who inclines his head, “I was grateful to you. You did all you could to resist harming us. You gave us time.”

“Aye, well,” Merida shifts. “I shouldn’t have bullied you like I did. I just wanted my heart back, I didn’t care how.”

“It took a bear to shake my bravery free,” he tells her, with a small shrug. “No amount of kind words would have brought you closer.”

“And,” Belle adds, “Without a heart you feel less empathy. You probably couldn’t have been kind if you wanted to.”

“I’m still sorry,” Merida says. “You were good to me back there, and you didn’t have to be. Any time you need my bow, you let me know.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes widen, surprised, but he nods, gratefully. “Count on it,” he agrees, gruffly. 

Merida inclines her head in goodbye, “I’m gonna run now,” she tells them. “Wanna get as far from the Dark One as m’feet can carry me.”

“For once, we’re of the same mind,” Rumpelstiltskin agrees, and for a moment they share a smile, common ground. Then Merida scarpers off down the dark street, and leaves Belle and Rumpelstiltskin alone. “Belle…” he starts, leaning heavily on his cane. “I…”

“It’s okay,” she nods, not knowing what else to say. There’s so much they need to talk about, so much that needs saying, and yet none of it can be said on the doorstep of Emma’s home. 

“I don’t know where to go now,” he admits, a little sheepishly. It’s so strange, looking at him and seeing no darkness, none of that manic violence that had always festered behind his eyes. He’s smaller, and yet stronger somehow, pure and clean: himself, and himself only. Belle doesn’t know how to feel about that. She’d steeled her heart, promised herself that if he ever woke up, she wouldn’t just fall into his arms. Promised herself her life would never again revolve solely around him.

And yet… she sighs, and yet.

“Well,” she says, a little awkwardly. “I moved out of the house when I… when you were gone. So you could go back there, if you wanted?”

“Ah,” he nods, and she looks for disapproval, disappointment on his face, but finds none. “Where do you live now?”

“A lot of my things are at my father’s,” she tells him. “But I mostly sleep in my apartment over the library. It’s handy, you know?”

“And not plagued by terrible memories,” Rumpelstiltskin nods. “I understand: you needn’t apologise. I know what I did to you was unforgivable. I was only wondering… I don’t want to intrude on your space. And the cabin’s got its own set of regrets.”

“I don’t want you to have to go home to that big house all alone,” Belle tells him. “Not… not tonight, anyway. Not if you don’t want to.”

“The cot in the shop is comfortable enough,” he suggests. “And you could… come by in the morning, and perhaps join me for breakfast? I have an inexplicable yen for a plate of pancakes, and I’ve, ah, heard Granny makes a great one?”

Belle feels her face split into a smile, and she nods. “Yes, I’d… I’d like that,” she says, and he blushes, and she knows he catches the memory too, to the first time they’d stood like this, the storm having past, and tried to move forward.

He sighs, relieved, and she knows he was worried she’d turn him down flat, however ridiculous that thought is. She isn’t ready to be his wife again, to know if the love she feels for him is worth anything, to know if this can really work, but he’ll never be out of her life. She missed him too much after she banished him; she’s missed him too much since. And she’d meant what she said, truly: it will never be too late. Not for true love.

He drives them both back to the shop, and she opens up for him, helping him into the back. There’s a bag of his clothing still under the cot, the supplies she left in case he woke up while they were in Camelot, and he doesn’t question why.

She offers an answer anyway, as he sits and unties his shoes, and she drags a chair over to sit with him. “I didn’t stay at your bedside for six weeks, Rumple,” she admits, softly. “I went to Camelot, with the others.”

That, of all things, is the only apology she has for him. They’ve been bad lovers, bad friends, betrayed and lied and broke one another a thousand times over, but the lifting of his curse creates an opening, a true new beginning. She won’t start it with him believing her more devoted than she was, with him so grateful for an inhuman feat she didn’t perform. He’d held her on a pedestal and refused to let her see him fall, before, and it ruined them. And so Belle apologises, despite not regretting a thing. 

“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmurs, looking up at her, dark eyes melting and heartfelt. Her heart gives a tug, a pull she recognises all too well. How many times has she drowned in those eyes of his? “I know that.”

“But you said… Rumple, you were so grateful to me, but I didn’t stand by you all that time. I went to Camelot. I don’t… remember what happened there, no one but Emma does, but I did go with them. Six weeks I was gone, and the petals fell.”

“Petals?” he frowns, confused, and she remembers that of course he knows nothing of that. She gestures behind her to the rose, that still sits on his work desk.

“The Blue Fairy enchanted it so it’s tied to your life,” she explains. “So I could know… so I could keep track. But honestly, I don’t know what I’d have done if the last petal had fallen, and I had no way home to you.”

“Belle, you cared enough to even watch that rose,” he tells her, earnestly, “You cared whether I lived or died, even if you couldn’t change it either way. You kept your word: you wouldn’t let me die alone, and I felt it. I heard your voice, felt your hand on my hair, your presence and warmth. You didn’t leave me all alone. You still cared, even from a million miles away.”

He slips his shoes off, and gives Belle time to swallow around the lump in her throat and compose herself. The back room is cramped and stuffy, dark in the warm lamplight, and suddenly she feels all too alone with him, too intimate, for all they’ve been alone most of the day.

“I… Rumple, of course I care about you,” she says. “Of course I do, but…”

“But you don’t want me to live just for that,” he finishes, softly, and she nods. “Belle, I’m sorry if I put pressure on you, if I made you… uncomfortable. I just wanted you to know how grateful I am, how special you are. You owe me nothing, certainly not your time or your affection. That you offered me even a sliver of either is a blessing I will never be worthy of.”

“You can’t keep saying things like that,” she shakes her head, lowers it, and lets her hair hide her face. “You can’t.”

“Why not?” he asks, “You always wanted honesty from me, Belle. I’m being honest now.”

“You saw what happened today, Rumple,” she said. “I… I care about the whole town, even if sometimes they can be selfish. A hero helps people, no matter what, and I want to help, and sometimes that’s dangerous. I can’t… I can’t be everything to you anymore. I tried, but it didn’t work.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to,” he assures her. “The Dark One made me insecure, made me crave you and want to control you to keep you safe, but without it I… I just want you to be happy. I always did. When I said those things I just wanted you to know how I felt. I wasn’t expecting anything in return.”

“And you didn’t wonder for a moment if maybe this isn’t what we thought it was?” she asks, helplessly, gesturing to the space between them, their relationship. “If maybe we just don’t… work?”

“Not for a moment,” he says, freely, openly, without a moment’s hesitation. “I love you. I always will. And if you don’t feel the same, or if you need time, or if you want me to never say it again, that’s okay. I didn’t… Belle I didn’t survive the coma because I believed when I woke up you’d fall into my arms and be my wife again. I know that that ship might well have sailed. I know that we may be too broken to repair. I survived because you exist in the world. Because despite everything, someone as brave and beautiful and kind as you can exist. Someone who would sit at my bedside and say soothing words to me, even when you didn’t have to, even when I’d hurt you beyond imagining, even when you didn’t think I could hear you. You make me believe, Belle, just by being yourself. I would never want to be the reason someone like you got lost. I would never want to make you unhappy, not ever again.”

Belle whimpers, “Oh, gods,” and bows her head, tears running down her face. She was strong in front of Merida, strong with the bear, strong in the face of Emma’s cold mockery. But now, with him so open, defenceless in his socks in the back of the shop, looking at her like that, and saying such beautiful things…

Belle is not always strong; Belle does not always know the right thing to say next. 

“Oh, oh sweetheart,” he reaches out his arms and, like the fool she is, she crawls into them, pitching herself forward, sitting down hard next to him and holding him close. “Oh, Belle, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

He rocks her, his hand on the back of her hair, stroking, his face pressed to the crown of her head, her face buried in his shoulder. She cries until she can’t breathe, for the pain of their separation, for her worry, for her carefully constructed strength and carelessness in the face of his loss. For her anger at his betrayal, for the grief of knowing her true love was lost to her forever, whether he returned or not. And then, finally, for the sheer relief, the rush of joy, at having him here again, safe in her arms, a true hero, come home from a terrible war at last.

Finally, she pulls away from him, and he lets her go, easy as breathing. “I didn’t mean to make you cry, Belle,” he assures her, desperately. “I just… I need you to know everything, this time. No more secrets and lies.”

“Why couldn’t I have known you from the start?” she asks, softly. “Gods, why couldn’t we have started here?”

“We’re here now,” he says. “Can… can that be what matters?” He swallows hard, nervous, his hands fluttering and unsure around her, not knowing where to rest.

“What if you wake up tomorrow terrified again?” she asks. “What if you make up a new spell to drive over the town line?”

“I won’t,” he promises. “You were right… there are people here I still care about. There’s you,” he draws a soft smile from her at that, the smile on his face so full of emotion, full of love, she has to look away. “And Henry, and… and even Emma. Bae loved her, so much. I can’t let her die of the same curse that killed him. I was wrong to run before, it was selfish, and it was even worse to try to make you run with me. I love that you’re so brave, so selfless, even though the consequences terrify me.”

“I need you here,” she tells him, and his arm rests finally around her shoulders, and it feels right, real, like coming home. “I need to know you can… that you can stay, and be the man you were today. I need to know I wasn’t wrong. I need to trust you.”

“The only time you’ve ever been wrong about anything was when I was lying to you,” Rumpelstiltskin says. “And then only because you trusted a man who loved you, but couldn’t accept you as you were. You were right. I encouraged you to bury yourself, to lose the very things I loved about you, in order to hide the worst of me.”

“The worst of the Dark One,” she corrects. “I… I never knew you before this. I never had a point of comparison. Seeing Emma now… I don’t hold those lies against you anymore. I never realised how greatly the curse can change a person, and I want a chance to know you as you truly are, not as the monster the Dark One turned you into.”

“I still hurt you. I understand if that wound takes time to heal. I knew better, Belle. I knew that if I told you straight away what I wanted to do, the plans I had, what I needed… I knew you’d stop me. I knew you’d fight me, if you had to. And I knew if you did, I’d lose you, because you wouldn’t have been able to change my mind.”

“You scared me today,” she admits. “You didn’t tell me where we were going. I trusted you again, and you betrayed me, again, without even the curse to blame. I don’t think I ever could have forgiven you if you’d driven us out of town.”

“I was scared,” he sighs. “Everything I’ve done to you, every time I’ve ever hurt you, it’s been because of that: because of my fear. I was afraid if I told you my plan you’d say no, and I’d be trapped, watching you die because of me. Like Bae died, because of me.”

“Bae didn’t die because of you,” Belle reminds him, frustration colouring her voice, because this is always his problem: he blames himself for everything, every loss, even the ones that aren’t his fault. “He didn’t, he died because of Zelena. Don’t get that mixed up, don’t let anyone tell you different. You died to save him, willingly lost your mind… no one could have done more.”

There’s silence, a beat, and then he sighs, his shoulders sagging.

“You’re right,” he says, but she doesn’t think he means about Baelfire. He removes his arm and sits away from her, puts space between them. “I can’t know if I’ll still feel brave tomorrow. I can’t know if I’ll ever change. I can’t promise you that I’ll always be the man you deserve. I can only promise to try.”

“You’re making a good start,” she tells him, hesitantly. “Being honest, that takes bravery. And you pulled the sword from the stone. You threatened Emma. And you saved Merida, when it gained you nothing and she’d done terrible things to you. That all means something. It’s a huge step in the right direction.”

She wants to promise to stay beside him, so long as he’s a hero, but it feels like a battle already fought and lost, a trick long since played out. She promised to stay if he didn’t kill Regina, and then promised to marry him for Zelena’s life, and neither time did it stick. No more ultimatums, no more threats. No more promises neither of them knows how to keep.

“I just… I need to know one thing,” he says, and Belle nods.

“Anything,” she agrees. “Honesty and openness from now on, yes? No more secrets or lies.”

“Honesty,” he nods, “yes, that’s good. I’m… I’m so sorry, Belle, for trying to take your choice away. It was a terrible thing to do, and I’ll try never to do it again.”

I’ll try, she thinks, not I promise, not I swear. I’ll try. She smiles: that’s a much easier promise to keep than any other, and so it means so much more.

“What do you need to know?”

“Do you… could you… still love me?” he asks, and she sees him wince at having to ask, sees how terrified he is that she’ll reject him, and break him all over again. “Your answer doesn’t decide anything,” he continues in a rush, “I won’t suddenly become a merciless killer or a helpless coward, today won’t be forgotten. I don’t want you to feel… responsible for me. I just need to know if there’s still hope.”

“Oh, Rumple,” she shakes her head, unable to keep her smile from her face, unable to keep her gaze from his deep, perfect brown eyes, from the gentle, sad openness of his face. How many times will he do this? Let her go, release her; make her tell him that letting go of him was the hardest thing she ever did, and for all her strength she can’t do it twice? “Didn’t you hear me before? It’s never too late.”

Her hand reaches up of its own accord, stroking his hair, cupping his cheek, seeking to comfort him through touch where words fail. She isn’t ready to say it, to commit to it, to give him too much hope in this hectic, shattering rush of a day. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel his heartbeat in tandem with hers.

She strokes his cheekbone with the side of her thumb as if re-learning his face. Every line and crease is both familiar and new, every fleck of amber in his dark eyes a new revelation: the soft curve of his lips, the long line of his nose, every crease and plane of his face. He’s beautiful, ravaged and careworn, soft and sharp, ancient and young, and Belle can’t look away.

He leans into her touch, kisses her palm, and Belle is lost.

When she leans up, breathless and lost and found all at once, it’s like the very first time. Her mouth meets his, and their kiss is tender, soft, and he’s so very still, nothing but his lips moving to meet hers. When she pulls back, just for a moment, she half expects to see receding golden scales, his curled hair turning straight again. As if this were three decades and a world away, and everything was still new, fresh, untouched and unmarred by all that came next. As if she is still a maid, innocent and wide-eyed, convinced that love can be enough, intoxicated by this impossible man who is at once so alive and yet so lost. 

But the Dark Castle was a long time ago, and decades have passed since then, and Belle is no longer that innocent girl, convinced of love and happy endings, seeking her own bravery. Belle has seen too much pain, too much loss, and she wonders if her heart hasn’t been as hardened as his in the intervening years. She is a woman now, forged in fire and steel, and it’s far harder for her now to look at him with the same open, unhindered hope she’d felt before.

So much is different, but as she watches him blink his soft eyes open, she can also find a thousand similarities. Rumpelstiltskin still looks as dazed, as confused as the very first time, as if that soft brush of her lips were a mystery he could never hope to unravel. And yet… and yet his fear is gone, the fear that had reignited his curse and ruined their chance. He smiles, just a little, stunned and unfocused as if addled by her. 

Her hand is still on his cheek, her fingers brushing the soft grey ends of his hair. She couldn’t move it if she tried.

“Kiss me again,” he begs, his voice rough and low. She’s never heard him like that before, so utterly wrecked by a single kiss, and it makes her tremble. “It’s working.”

All the words, emotion, distance and equivocation, dancing the line between love and despair, trying not to fall over the edge.. all of it is lost to Belle, lost in this moment, in him. This is the man she’s loved all this time, she thinks: the man who came back for her, at last, who risked life and limb to protect her. The man she hasn’t seen so much as a glimpse of since he plunged a knife into the back of his demonic father, and vanished in a burst of golden light. The man she’s always seen; the man she’s been waiting for for so long. 

And who knows, really, if this time will ever come again? Who knows what fresh danger, what loss, tomorrow might bring?

She does as he asks: he kisses him again, her other hand braced on his shoulder, and this time he is all action; this time he is ready. His hand cups the back of her head, tangled in her hair, and his other takes her waist, lightly, wonderingly, as if waiting any moment for her to pull away.

Belle does no such thing: she kisses him deeper, kisses him the way she’s been wanting for longer than she can remember, and her head spins with the sensation. He kisses her with single-minded determination, clutching her closer, desperate and yet unbearably tender, as if she’s the only thing left to him in the universe. 

She parts his lips with her tongue, and he tastes both familiar and utterly new, as if some essential essence has changed. He moans, deep in his throat, and yields to her, allows her to do as she will. 

“Belle,” he murmurs against her lips, when they part for breath, “Belle, Belle, Belle…”

His mouth moves from her lips down her jaw, to the side of her neck, mapping her sensitive places with ease. Belle whimpers when he sucks gently on her pulse point, and nips at his jaw as payback, making him jolt and stiffen in her arms. He tears back up and takes her mouth like he’s dying, savagely, as if he cannot hold himself back, and it’s Belle’s turn to moan into his mouth, to cling to his shoulders and yield to the onslaught of lips and teeth and tongue.

He eases her backward on the cot, giving her every chance to stop or to move away. This is a bad idea, she knows that, even as his mouth moves to the other side of her neck, his nose buried in her hair, nuzzling and lapping and kissing her throat as if it contains heaven itself. He worships her, she realises, every brush of his mouth is homage, is supplication. It’s beautiful; it drives her out of her mind, and for a long minute Belle gasps and writhes against him, lost in him.

And yet… and yet this is new, this is different, this total worship, this utter devotion. This absence of an ulterior motive, of the demon in his head distracting him and pulling him away from her – yes, that is what has changed, that’s what is different here. 

She pulls his face from her neck by his hair, gently tugging until he surfaces, and he’s breathing hard, his eyes glazed, when he pulls himself up on one arm to look down at her. Belle scrambles to sit up a little, so she can look him in the eye. “Rumple,” she says, firmly, although the tremble in her voice and the heat in her veins belie her tone. “We… we should talk about this, first, shouldn’t we?”

“You’re right,” he nods, surprising her yet again. How many times before has he distracted her with kisses, with all the wonderful ways he knows to drive the thoughts from her mind? How many times has he avoided talking, at any cost, for fear of rejection?

“We… we don’t even know what we are to one another,” she says. “We don’t know where we’re going. What if… what if we ruin everything all over again? I couldn’t bear to try again only for it to break.”

He nods, shakily, “I… yes… you could be right.” He’s trembling, Belle can see it from his hand trying to neaten his hair. She sits up straighter, her back to the wall, and she pulls him back into her arms and cuddles him close, enjoying at least the solid weight of him on top of her. He’s shaking all over, tense and pulled tight as a bowstring, and that is new: they’ve lain together a hundred times, and Belle was always driven wild by him, while Rumpelstiltskin was ever in control of himself.

“Are you alright?” she asks him, softly, as he sighs and burrows his face back into her throat. He doesn’t kiss her again, he just rests there, as if comforted, and for a moment she just strokes his hair, and allows them this. “Rumple?” she tries, again, when he doesn’t speak, and he wrenches himself away, wild-eyed, and looks down at her with glazed eyes.

“I… it’s different, now…” he manages, as though it’s hard to form words, as if his mind is scattered. “More… everything with you is more. I felt it when you hugged me, in the woods, but its… it’s so much more when you kiss me.”

“More?”

“More intense, hotter, deeper, like… like nothing else,” he shakes his head, frowning, trying to think. “Like true love’s kiss, but a thousand times over.”

“Without the Dark One in the way?” she guesses, trying to process this. “Is it… is that it?”

He nods, “That’d make sense,” he says. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he pulls away from her, his hands in his hair. “I’m sorry, Belle, you should go, I shouldn’t… we shouldn’t…”

“Shh,” she breathes, and wraps her arms around him, pulling him back in. She feels the tension in his shoulders relax somewhat when he buries his face in her neck, the shaking decreasing when she runs her hands over his back. She pulls the suit jacket from his shoulders, and he shucks it off and onto the floor. It’s so much better, she thinks, without the stiff fabric in the way.

“I missed you,” she tells him, because it’s true, and because she thinks he needs to hear it. Maybe she doesn’t know this new man, maybe she doesn’t understand him yet, but he came back for her, he loves her, and Emma could return and kill them both tomorrow morning, if she chose. Time has taught them both that these quiet moments, this time together, is fragile and fleeting at best. They haven’t all the time in the world to waste.

“I missed you too,” he tells her. His voice rumbles against her skin, vibrating through her, as if her bones reverberate at the pitch of his voice, low and rough in her neck. Belle doesn’t know if she’s ever been this confused in her life: wanting him and yet not wanting to ruin this, missing him and yet being the reason he was gone in the first place, knowing him and yet not knowing this new man at all. Loving him, and yet not knowing at all what that means anymore. “Brave, beautiful, kind, clever Belle,” he praises, and punctuates every word with a kiss, up her neck to her jaw, until his mouth is at her ear, making her shiver all over. “I’ve missed you so.”

“We have this chance, Rumple,” she says, her voice trembling, the urge to just give in to him, to everything they’re both craving, is almost overwhelming.  She should push him away: she should stand and leave and see him in the morning. If she did she knows he wouldn’t beg her to stay, he wouldn’t keep her from leaving. But for all her better judgement, Belle still can’t seem to let go of him. “We can’t ruin this again. And this… it doesn’t mean we’re together again. It doesn’t mean I’m moving back in, or we’re renewing our vows, or that you can lie to me to cover when you know I’ll disapprove.”

“I know,” he nods, breathing a shaky sigh into her hair. “I know, we can’t just…  pick back up, because that life… that life was poisoned, by the curse and by my mistakes. We need a fresh start. But… we can do it all better this time. We can make a life worth living.”

Belle has tears in her eyes as she looks him in the eye, and she nods, kissing him again, her tears and his mingling on their cheeks. For all her doubts, for all the agony and suffering, for all the things that could go terribly wrong… despite everything, Belle feels hope, bright and furious and undeniable, blooming in her chest. 

This is true love, she thinks, and it’s worth fighting for. She reaches out a hand, and fans it over his chest, over his heart. It pounds against her hand, his heartbeat fast but strong, so strong. A hero’s heart. “Fresh start, fresh heart,” she murmurs, with a small smile.

“Full of you,” he promises. “You… you make me brave. Just by being what you are, in everything you do… even when you walked away from me tonight, you taught me what a hero truly is. You take your life in your own hands, and you use it to save people, even me. Especially me.” He reaches out his own hand, and mirrors her position, over her own heart. “No lies, this time,” he promises, again. “No more helpless fear. Just me and you. The way it should have been, from the very start.”

“What would you have done differently, then?” she asks, looking him in the eyes. “At the start, just after our first kiss? What would you have done, if not push me away?”

He smiles, a stupid, happy smile, and leans into her. His mouth works skilfully over hers, coaxing her lips apart, teasing her tongue with his as if he’s trying to drink her in, to lose himself in her. It is a wonderful kiss, gentle and strong, tentative but determined, and when he pulls back her eyes are heavy lidded and the blood has rushed to her cheeks. “That.” He smiles, with such a mix of helpless devotion and that heroic confidence she’d seen back in the basement that Belle has to kiss him again, breathlessly and without any restraint.

“What then?” she pants, wrenching them apart, wondering if she’s not also feeling a little of the intensity that’s driving him wild. “What would you have done then?”

“If I’d had my way, and you’d been willing?” he asks, a little of that fear returning to his eyes. Belle can hardly contain her swell of pride as she watches him fight it down, and continues regardless. “I’d have taken you to bed that very night. I spent months watching you, Belle, loving you, everything that you are. Now I’ve spent years, and the effect is only stronger. I only love you more with time.”

Belle swallows, hard, and Rumpelstiltskin rushes to continue, “But, I understand if that’s not what you want, right now. I’d understand if you never felt the same way again. And we can wait, date… get to know one another again, if you want?”

“I… I do want that,” she nods, trying to process what she wants even as she speaks, trying to make sure he gets as much truth as he’s trying so hard to give her now. “But I also want you. Could we… have both, for now? Would that be- oh!”

Rumpelstiltskin’s face has broken into the broadest grin she’s ever seen, and he all but tackles her down onto the cot, covering her body with his and ravaging her, her face and mouth, her neck and collarbone, anywhere he can reach, with kisses. She squirms at last out of her red jacket, and he throws it to the floor, and the moment it’s gone she’s back in his arms, clutching him close, adoring the feeling of his hair sliding through her fingers, his mouth on her skin, his steady weight covering her body.

“Shoes,” she gasps, laughing as she almost kicks him by accident. “I need… my boots need to come off.” He moves back so she can sit up a little and pull the zippers on her boots down. He helps her pull them off, and they clatter as they fall to the ground with his shoes, and their jackets. “Better,” she grins, and tangles her legs with his to prove it.

He leans in and nudges her nose with his, making her giggle, “Clever Belle,” he says, again, and she laughs.

“You next,” she decides. Her hands reach to undo his buttons, one by one, a quick line down his chest that leaves his shirt open, hanging on either side. She marvels as he doesn’t cover himself, allows her to touch and look her fill. He was always quick to keep his shirt on and leave the lights off, before. 

She leans up, and kisses the place over his heart, making him quiver all over. “Belle,” he moans, raggedly, and his urgency hums with her own. They’ve stalled long enough.

“Take it off,” she whispers, as she reaches down to pull her own dress off over her head, bearing her bra-clad breasts to his sight. He looks back after shrugging out of his shirt, and Belle sees his eyes arrest on her chest, staring with an intensity that would be unnerving if it didn’t set every nerve in her body on fire.

She takes one of his hands in hers, and places it on her breast, gently. “It’s okay,” she murmurs, “It’s okay.”

He nods, and squeezes her gently, making her breath hitch in her throat. She wraps her legs around his and bucks up against him, and he groans, lost, all but falling forward and burying his face between her breasts. She slips her hands behind her to help him, removing her bra and casting it aside. He groans his approval, his mouth and hands working in tandem to tease at her nipples, to cover her flesh in kisses until she’s writhing beneath him. Every scrape of his teeth and brush of his lips sends sparks across her skin, shuddering through every inch of her that has missed him, missed this, for so very long.

Her hands run over his chest, over his heart, his shoulders, his sternum, his stomach, every part she can reach, trying to commit the warmth of his body to memory, to remember this. He arches and shivers under her touch, and she remembers what he said about everything feeling more to him, now the Dark One is gone. She scrapes her fingers over his stomach, and feels him tremble as he groans her name, “Belle…”

“Please,” she whimpers, not sure anymore exactly what she’s begging for, except for more of him, all of him, “Rumple… please…”

He nods, forcing himself away from his ardent worship of her breasts, and his hands go to his flies, tearing at his belt and buttons like a madman, while she all but rips her tights and knickers from her legs and wriggles them down, throwing them to the floor. She shivers, now completely bare, but the utter adoration on Rumpelstiltskin’s slack-jawed face removes her self-consciousness. His eyes rake over her, his gaze almost a caress in itself, and she shifts and shakes under his scrutiny.

He finally succeeds over his flies, and he holds Belle’s gaze as he braces himself back over her, and positions himself at her entrance. His fingers stroke over her folds, find her more than ready, wet and hot, and she shudders and keens as he strokes her, spreading her moisture, teasing her until she’s ready to burst.

“Please, Rumple,” she begs again. “Please…”

He nods, every muscle and tendon tight as he tries to control himself, and she strokes his hair, cups his cheek. She tries to tell him through these soft touches that everything’s okay, they’re safe, and he’s wanted.

Belle moans as Rumpelstiltskin eases into her, inch by inch. Her back arches, and she shifts, trying to get as close to him as she can, pulling him down to her so their mouths meet, and their bodies are pressed tight together, locked in this embrace. She tightens her legs around his hips, encouraging him to move, and he rocks against her, neither of them wanting him to pull away, neither wanting to lose an inch of this closeness. It feels a lifetime since she had him like this, and she’s missed it, missed him, more than she can bear. She doesn’t think she’d even known how much she’d missed him until this moment. 

They move in tandem, both of them too far gone to say anything more. They lose themselves in sensation, in homecoming, in messy, loose-lipped kisses, shared breaths, drinking each other in and refusing to let go. Rumplestiltskin rocks against her, and the slow, deep rhythm, the sensation of having him safe inside her, of being joined with him once more and knowing, once and for all that this is him, only him… it’s all more beautiful than Belle can hope to describe. They remain that way for immeasurable time, the world coming to a halt with them pressed so close, as close as two people could be. The pleasure builds gradually, slowly, and Belle all but forgets it in the overwhelming joy of being wrapped around him once more.

Then his mouth drifts lower, and Belle arches her back so he can reach her breasts with his mouth, returning to his passionate adoration of her skin. Belle moans as he thrusts inside her and sucks hard her breast, laving the bud with his tongue and then, out of nowhere, the waves that have been building and banking within her break. Belle cries out his name, her whole body tensing and shaking as her pleasure washes through her, her inner walls fluttering around him, drawing him ever deeper and holding him within her.

Rumpelstiltskin groans her name against her breastbone. She feels his hips jerk in response to her climax, as he finishes inside her with a long, low moan, and surges up to bury his face once again in her throat.

They lie there for a long time, breathing hard, dazed and warm and wrapped in each others’ arms. Eventually, he softens and slips out of her, and Belle mourns the loss for all that it’s easier to breathe when his weight shifts off her.

“Is this…” he starts, his voice muffled in her hair, sleepy and confused, “Is this okay?”

Belle thinks for a moment, trying to find regret, trying to find the urge to get off this tiny bed and walk home, to leave him here. She is both surprised and bewildered to find none at all. Nothing has ever felt so right as this moment, with Rumpelstiltskin free of his darkness and newly heroic, wrapped around her from head to toe, every inch of skin in contact with hers.

“I think so,” she nods, stroking his hair. “I… I’m glad you’re back,” she says, and the aren’t the right ones, aren’t the words she was almost about to say, but they’re enough for now. “I missed you.”

“Missed you too,” he says, kissing her neck once again. “You smell so good,” he murmurs, and she’s not sure if he’s even really speaking to her, but the ravaged tone of his voice makes her giggle.

“New shampoo,” she confides. “Vanilla rose.”

“It’s you,” he says, shaking his head just a little. “It’s all you. Always you. Warm and safe, wonderful Belle.”

Sooner or later, she thinks, she’ll have to stop reacting to his unabashed compliments with this full-body rush of happiness, pleasure tingeing her skin pink. But it is not right now, apparently.

He snuggles in close, and Belle manages to crane her arm around to snag the spare blankets stacked under the cot, pulling them up onto the bed. Between them, one arm each, they manage to spread the blankets out over them, and Belle sighs and cuddles closer to him, spooning up with him pressed to her back, his arms around her torso. Belle almost purrs with pleasure at the new warmth.

“Pancakes tomorrow?” he asks, hopefully, and she laughs and nods, pressing a clumsy kiss to his shoulder.

“Pancakes tomorrow,” she agrees, with a smile. “I can’t wait.”


End file.
